426 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



of barbarism. When they have learned to put aside their exclusiveness as well as 

 jealousy of foreign influence, and have experienced the advantages of a wisely 

 regulated commercial intercourse, which has contributed so largely to the material 

 and intellectual advancement of the civilized nations, there is every reason to 

 believe that the Japanese will attain to a respectable and creditable position among 

 the nations of the earth. 



The Japanese islands sustain a peculiar physical relation to the northwest coast 

 of the United States. A chain of small islands (the Kurilian) breaks the distance 

 which separates Japan from the peninsula of Kamtschatka; and from thence the 

 Aleutian chain of islands stretches across to the peninsula of Alaska upon the Ameri- 

 can continent, forming the boundary between the north Pacific and Behring's Sea. 

 These islands, the peaks of a submarine mountain chain, are thickly studded together 

 within a continuous belt, and are in substantial communication with each other, from 

 the extreme point of Alaska to the island of Kyska, by means of the ordinary native 

 boat in use among the Aleutian islanders. From the latter to Attou island the 

 greatest distance from island to island is less than one hundred miles. Between 

 Attou island and the coast of Kamtschatka, there are but two islands, Copper and 

 Behring's, between which and Attou the greatest distance occurs, a distance of 

 about two hundred miles ; whilst from Behring's island to the main land of Asia it 

 is less than one hundred miles. These geographical features alone would seem to 

 render possible a migration, in the primitive and fishermen ages, from one conti- 

 nent to the other. But superadded to these is the great thermal ocean current, 

 analogous to the Atlantic gulf stream, which, commencing in the equatorial regions 

 near the Asiatic continent, flows northward along the Japan and Kurilian islands, and 

 then bearing eastward divides itself into two streams. One of these, following the 

 main direction of the Asiatic coast, passes through the straits of Behring and enters 

 the Arctic Ocean ; whilst the other, and the principal current, flowing eastward, and 

 skirting the southern shores of the Aleutian islands, reaches the northwest coast 

 of America, whence it flows southward along the shores of Oregon and California, 

 where it finally disappears. This current, or thermal river in the midst of 

 the ocean, would constantly tend, by the mere accidents of the sea, to throw 

 Asiatics from Japan and Kamtschatka upon the Aleutian islands, from which their 

 gradual progress eastward to America would become assured. It is common at 

 the present time to find trunks of camphor wood trees from the coasts of China 

 and Japan upon the shores of the island of Ounalaska, one of the easternmost of the 

 Aleutian chain, carried thither by this ocean current. It also explains the agency 

 by which a disabled Japanese junk with its crew was borne directly to the shores 

 of California but a few years since. Another remarkable effect produced by this 

 warm ocean current is the temperate climate which it bestows upon this chain of 

 islands and upon the northwest coast of America. These considerations assure us 

 of a second possible route of communication besides the straits of Behring, between 

 the Asiatic and American continents. 1 



1 The Eskimo now occupy tbe Aleutian islands ; but it seems probable that it is a retrogression 

 westward of this people under the pressure upon them of the Athapascan nations. As a matter of 



